Deferring to Common Sense, Giambi Should Stay With A's

Glenn Dickey

Published 4:00 am, Monday, January 22, 2001

JASON GIAMBI hasn't yet uttered the athlete's mantra: It's not about the money. No doubt he will, but it is about the money. It always is.

Giambi's contract negotiations have stalled, at least momentarily, over the issue of deferred money. The A's have offered $91 million over six years, but they want to defer about 1/6th of that, which would bring Giambi's salary down to approximately $12 million a year. Not exactly chump change, except to a baseball player, it seems.

For many years, players have equated money with respect. The A's had a notable example of that in the early '90s. Rickey Henderson signed a four-year contract which made him the highest-paid player in the game, and he was ecstatic. Within a short period of time, Rickey's contract was surpassed by others -- and he wanted to renegotiate.

The benchmark for Giambi is Carlos Delgado, the Toronto first baseman who recently signed a contract which pays him $17 million a year. Delgado had an excellent year, but Giambi was the American League's Most Valuable player.

Maybe, when players get together at golf tournaments, they talk about salaries, and those whose salaries are less are scorned.

The rest of us -- fans and media -- do not judge players by their salaries. Last year, Ken Griffey Jr. accepted less than full-market value so he could return to Cincinnati, where he'd grown up. That certainly didn't hurt his reputation or image with players and fans.

It's what a player does on the field which affects his reputation. If a player doesn't do it on the field, a big salary guarantees only that he'll get even more grief from fans and media.

Agents are the ones who really benefit from the big salaries. If agents can get top dollar for their clients, the agents can parlay that into more high- salaried clients. So, it makes sense for them to go for the best possible deal.

The biggest contract is not always the best for the athlete, who has to live with the consequences. Giambi should realize this and become the person who calls the shots on this deal, not his agent.

Here are some of the factors Giambi should consider:

-- A's owners Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann have stepped up to the plate in these negotiations. This is hardly an insulting offer. The A's revenues still lag behind most of their competitors, and they have to keep control of the payroll. It does nobody any good if the A's return to the days when they were swimming in red ink.

-- The A's are a very comfortable fit for Giambi. He came up through the A's minor-league system, and he has played exclusively for the A's on the major-league level. He is a leader in the clubhouse and good friends with most of his teammates. He is playing for a manager he likes, Art Howe, and when Giambi and other players went to bat for Howe in 1998, general manager Billy Beane listened to them and kept Howe.

-- The A's are on the verge of becoming a great team. Last year, they were probably just one bad inning (in the final game of their playoff series with the Yankees) from the World Series. The trade for Johnny Damon makes them better, and the natural improvement of their young players should lift them into the Series this year and set the stage for multiple championships.

However, it's unlikely they'll win those championships if Giambi walks after this year. It's not only that they'd lose his production but that other players, most notably closer Jason Isringhausen, are waiting to see if Giambi signs before committing to long-term contracts.

-- Though agents don't like contracts with deferred money, because inflation will erode the value of those payments, that deferred money is also a way an athlete can protect himself.

The big-money contracts have not been an unmitigated blessing for players. They're young men without the experience of making important decisions, and they often get talked into investments that lose that money. Stories about athletes going bankrupt are commonplace.

If Giambi had $15 million deferred for 20 years, that might be worth only $10 million by today's standards by the time he got it, but everything is relative. Most of his fans dream of winning $10 million in the lottery. It certainly would meet all of Jason's needs for the rest of his life, even if he'd blown all his money in the interim. How many motorcycles does he need?

So, the choice is Giambi's: Go for the money or stay where he belongs. If he makes the right decision, he can be the first athlete to mean it when he says it isn't about the money.